


Taking Flight

by Blanquette



Series: Wild Days [4]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Beginnings, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, One Shot, Painting, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 22:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12419232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: Minhyuk, from him finding Kihyun in high-school, to hanging out with Hyungwon on a scaffolding, years later.





	Taking Flight

**Author's Note:**

> The previous work in this series (True Romance) should probably be read before that one, the end mirrors it.

1.

They meet when they’re both handcuffed side-by-side to the same bench in the same police station. One of them is sharp and annoyed, glowering at anything and everything. The other’s soft smiles and absent stares, unconsciously rubbing at his ink-stained fingers, politely bowing each time an officer passes them by. They’re wearing the same high-school uniform, and that’s what pushes the latter to talk. He nudges his neighbor with his elbow, smiling at him.

“Hey, I don’t think I’ve seen you before, which year are you in?”

He gets leveled with an even more annoyed stare and more silence. It washes over him without leaving a trace.

“What are you in for? I’m a vandal.”

He raises his hands as high as they would go given their current predicament, shaping them like claws, showing off the colors streaking his fingers. His neighbor looks down at his own hands, colorful in their own right, scrapped knuckles not yet scabbed over. He makes a fist, shows it to his neighbor, the metallic cuff softly clanking against the bench as he does.

“Wild. I’m Lee Minhyuk.”

“Yoo Kihyun.”

There’s an intake of breath, a spark of recognition, and Kihyun shifts his eyes from Minhyuk’s brightening face to the dirty tile floor of the police station.

“Yeah, I know you. You’re famous. Or infamous? Is that the correct word?”

Something in Kihyun’s face twitches, but he doesn’t have time to answer, as an officer comes to stand in front of them.

“Your dad is here, Minhyuk. It’s only the third time this week. Give the guy a break.”

“Third time?”

The words, disbelieving, spill from Kihyun’s mouth before he can catch them, and Minhyuk smiles at him as he’s led away.

“I really suck at not getting caught.”

Minhyuk might be smiling but there’s a shadow on his face that sits uneasily with Kihyun. Resignation, fear maybe. He waves.

 

2.

Minhyuk seems to think their encounter at the police station made them friends.

Kihyun doesn’t mind. He doesn’t have too many of those, and Minhyuk is easy. Pliant. He doesn’t push back, and his soft presence is easy to forget. There’s time where he spills over, where he becomes loud and bright and all over the place, but it quickly passes. Some shadow falls on him, and he becomes paper-thin again, subdued.

Kihyun wonders if it has something to do with Minhyuk wearing his winter uniform in the summer. Kihyun wonders if this is how Minhyuk would be if he didn’t have too many bruises to hide under his long sleeves. He tells him he will serve as a lookout when he paints, so that he doesn’t get caught again.

 

3.

Kihyun is always angry. It’s always there, simmering under the surface, even when his face is calm and his voice soft. His body cannot hold everything, and sometimes he’s spilling at the seams, his wrath exploding in raging fists and searing words. Minhyuk loves it. Minhyuk feels like bursting, too, most of the time. He doesn’t. Instead he paints in broad streaks and bright colors, and he watches Kihyun fight, and he feels electricity at the tip of his fingers. Kihyun is strong and untouchable. Kihyun fights back, matches bruise for bruise, and then some more. Minhyuk loves it. Minhyuk loves him, too, maybe.

It’s their last year sharing the same uniform. Kihyun talks of going to university. He’s smart, he has good grades, and it’s hard for everyone to reconcile this and his reputation. Minhyuk isn’t surprised. Kihyun might be made of iron but he has a soft core, he has ambitions, and he will be something. Minhyuk won’t. Minhyuk won’t go to university. Minhyuk has no ambitions. This makes Kihyun angry, though.

 

4.

“You can’t stay here.”

It’s not a plea. It’s just a fact, stated in Kihyun’s smooth voice. His stare is hard, though, and Minhyuk drops his head, looks at the ground, where his feet are digging trenches in the dust. They’re sitting on old swings near Kihyun’s apartment building. The evening has eaten any remnants of sunlight and they’re now illuminated by ugly artificial lights that casts strange shadows on their bodies. Kihyun is watching Minhyuk intently, and the only shadow he can see is the eternal one smothering the light out of him.

“I can’t afford university.”

“Then don’t go. But don’t stay here, either.”

Minhyuk laughs, swings a little, back and forth, back and forth. Raises dust in a little cloud.

“Then where do I go?”

“You come with me.”

Minhyuk is easy. Pliant. He doesn’t push back.

“Okay,” he says, and he goes faster, higher and higher, on the swing. If he goes high enough, maybe the night sky will swallow him.

 

5.

Kihyun pulls new people into his orbit, and Minhyuk watches. Kihyun softens, somehow. They’re young, sure of themselves, unafraid. He has to watch out for them, and he does. He and Minhyuk live out of a small apartment they can barely afford. Kihyun goes to university. Minhyuk doesn’t. He takes to wandering, when he doesn’t work. Their neighborhood feels like a different city altogether, and he finds that he loves it.

The shadow is still there, dodging his steps, but somehow, it’s slowly pushed back. By Jooheon’s incessant babble, Changkyun’s strange humor, Kihyun infinite care. By the bright frescos he paints on walls and rooftops. By work, dull and tedious, but necessary for freedom.

The bruises fade and don’t come back.

Then one day, Minhyuk spills again, loud and bright and all over the place. The shadow doesn’t come to put him back together, too tight and muted. He guesses that’s how he’s going to be from now on.

 

6.

There’s a lot of new things that he loves now, although Kihyun is still at the height of his list. But there’s another boy’s name at the height of his, a boy Minhyuk can’t really hate, with broad shoulders and a broader smile. So they become friends instead of enemies. And really, it’s fine.

It takes a lot, to bury the feelings, and maybe the shadow is back for a while. But really, it’s fine. There’s a lot of other things to love.

Like high places at night, so close to the sky.

He’s sitting on a cold scaffolding, next to yet another person to fall under Kihyun’s pull. Hyungwon. He likes him. He’s tall and lanky and never seem to be quite totally awake. He’s interesting, and more importantly, he comes wandering with him. Hyungwon has his own shadow tailing him, Minhyuk is still not sure where it comes from. Everything else, Hyungwon wears on his skin.

“Everyone’s falling in love.”

Hyungwon had sighed, brought his knees to his chest. He looks miserable. So Minhyuk stares at the night sky instead of him, and he feels a strange giddiness spreading from his stomach into his chest. Everything is beautiful tonight. The city laid out before them, the stars above their head, even his painting, even Hyungwon, even himself.

“Yeah, I guess. And they think they’re so sneaky about it.”

His eyes fall back on Hyungwon and he nudges him with his knee, finally understanding what it was in Hyungwon’s tone that had brought a smile to his lips.

“But is that longing I hear?”

Hyungwon stays silent, staring at the artificial lights of the city. Minhyuk wants to tell him to look at the sky instead. If they went higher, maybe it would swallow them.

“Wanna fall in love with me? I’m cute, single and ready to mingle.”

Hyungwon shoves him. But there’s a hint of a smile playing at his lips, so Minhyuk laughs. It’s fine, like this, it really is. Hyungwon is tall and lanky and never quite awake, and he wanders with him, climbs on tall metal scaffoldings to watch him paint and complain about love until the sunlight raises to paint him bright orange. So it’s fine, really.

 

7.

“Could you add my name?”

“What?”

“I wanna know I exist, too.”

“I’ll do you one better.”

 

8.

He finds the perfect place entirely by chance. There’s only a small strip of land between the pillar and the water and he almost falls in twice. Bright colors he loves, broad strokes. Hyungwon’s face staring back at him on the scaffolding, tall and lanky and sad. Hyungwon who wants a proof of his existence, who wants someone to love him. Minhyuk can do the former. He’s not sure for the latter, yet. Maybe it’s not what’s important right now.

His arms hurt by the time he finishes. The portrait is looking back at him, and Minhyuk turns to stare at the water, where the colors blends and shapes themselves in infinite possibilities. It’s more than fine. It’s perfect.

 

 

 

 


End file.
